"It's not for others to disrupt us, it's for us to disrupt ourselves."

So said Ford CEO Mark Fields at the Detroit motor show, on the day his company made a whole host of technology announcements that will see Ford "go from an auto company to an auto and mobility company".

'Mobility' is the word that kept coming up, with Fields and chairman Bill Ford both talking about improving mobility to improve lives. But when you think about it, 'mobility' is a tough word to define and can come across as jargon. I had to look up what it meant...

I think in the context Ford uses it, mobility refers to anything to do with cars and getting around that's not the physical act of buying a car or driving it in a conventional way.

So it has launched a new programme called Ford Smart Mobility that's responsible for growing the mobility side of Ford's business. It will look at things such as connectivity, data and analytics, autonomous driving and customer experience. "It's a holistic way of looking at how we will grow in these areas, which are mainly technology ones," said Fields.

The particular juicy nugget in the announcements was a comparison with Apple. Ford wants to do to the car industry what Apple did to music with iTunes.

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Ford pointed out that Apple was on its knees in 2000-2001, before rebranding itself and focusing on customer experience and innovation.

Ford hopes its own Apple and iTunes will come from its new Ford Pass platform. Fields said Ford Pass would ensure that Ford's relationships with its customers would be as strong as its products. "At the moment, we don't pay enough to our customers after the purchase," he added. "Great companies have better relationships with their customers and also better revenues and stock prices... We want to revolutionise the customer experience in the automotive industry."

The key part of the Ford Pass system, which will be free to use and is not just for Ford customers, are the Ford Guides, who you'll call up to find out how to share or borrow a car, pre-book and pay for parking, or help you navigate a congested route.

There's a touch of gimmickry in there, but it's perhaps just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the opportunity Ford has sniffed. According to Ford, global car sales are worth around $2.3 trillion a year. Transportation services, including everything from public transport to taxis and apps, are worth more than double that at $5.4 trillion.

Ford wants to be competing for those transportation services. Maybe Ford Pass isn't the next Uber, maybe it is, but Ford will continue to try to come up with the next big thing in the automotive world - away from any oily bits - before someone else does. "We have to do it or someone will do it for us," said Fields, who confirmed that the company had hired a lot of people in recent months "to help us become a leader in smart mobility".

All this does raise an obvious question: is Ford in danger of taking its eye off the ball of its core business? "It's a great challenge," said Fields. "It's a challenge how to communicate how we're not going from being an old company to a new one, but how we're going to be a bigger one.

"No one will be marginalised. Sometimes we've gone off on tangents in the past and away from our core, but if you're an engine software specialist or suspension calibration engineer we'll still love and develop you all the same."

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That's a tricky one. Anyone who used Apple products pre-2000/1 knows they were much better made than subsequently and more innovative - but too expensive to be mainstream. In chasing sales the company has not necessarily improved what they do but instead transformed themselves into a much, much more profitable business which makes most of its money by persuading punters that what they need to do is to buy a new gadget every year.

Ford has got this system but is not confident enough in it that it isn't also offering the Apple / Google alternatives. Toyota has committed to the Ford system and isn't offering Apple / Google. The Big German 3 were so terrified of the software firms that they spent USD 3 bn on buying the Here mapping business off Nokia.

We're moving to an age where software and data are driving car innovation. What the car companies are terrified of is that if they use Apple / Google services they provide usage data to the tech firms who have a history of being better at realising value from it and certainly have much better software skills / infrastructure. Tesla's autopilot functionality is mostly about giving its users enough benefit that they use the system thereby sending critical data back to Tesla which they can use to develop product. None of the established manufacturers thought this way. Who else is providing the ability to update the car software over the air that is needed to do this?

Apple has almost the same amount IN CASH as VAG is worth.

Ford hasn't denied that it's in discussion with Google to build their cars.

There is massive disruption coming. The established manufacturers have woken up to this, probably too late.

I'd agree in part with Chandrew above on Tesla. As a purchase, a new vehicle happens maybe once every 3 years or so, with one maybe 2 service visits to dealers. There is little ongoing connection to the manufacturer other than customer satisfaction surveys, the odd magazine and dealer marketing emails.
Teslas ability to provide regular software updates through the car itself provides a great way of regular direct manufacturer contact (rather than dealer), and could provide an app store like experience allowing customers to purchase upgrades and modifications to the car during its lifetime, and order accessories to be delivered, and services booked straight through the touchscreen, and your car apps could then be saved under your account and ported to your next car upon purchase.

As someone who uses a six year old Nokia phone, an IPad that s great at home but there are very few places where the Internet is available away from home here in Wales nor mobile phone signals I cannot see any use for being connected in my car. Why would I want to pay or indeed use for free some service whilst driving even if I could receive a signal. I think I have used my sat nav once in two years. Not many people need all the electronics in cars. The younger generation will just use their smart phones, why have the complication of a smart phone and Ford or whatever communication device.

When I'm in my car I like to drive. I don't want to be surfing the web. My phone is with me at all times, which means it's convenient. Imagine having to pop out to the car late at night to plan a journey, book a hire car, search for a parking spot for tomorrow's journey, or to book a service.

Can I just say, I HATE the Ford SYNC system. I encounter it frequently on hire cars (I rent a different vehicle each week as I travel for business).

The SYNC system is slow to respond, tricky to setup (try synching a new phone to it quickly) and most annoyingly - when you are using the Map app on your phone because Avis were cheap and deleted the Navigation - each time Siri finishes an instruction, the SYNC system feels obliged to say "Call ended".